Category: Trips & Events

One thing that I sincerely love about planning a party is the research and idea collecting that comes with it. I can only say how happy I am that such a thing as Pinterest exists today. I do not know how my mom came up with all the ideas and plans she did for all of our many parties in my youth, but thank heavens for Pinterest. You might not always find what you’re looking for, but it’s a great place to start with a base and even just hold on to something that sounded really neat and you can rely on later. Plus there’s less of a chance of misplacing or loosing your notes.

And for me, with our original anniversary party plans, it was a life saver! Now, our plans are very much changed, unfortunately, but I thought I should share what I’ve gathered together.

According to the internet, not too many people have thrown a Princess Bride themed party. I found a couple wedding photo shoots and some loosely themed wedding plans, but to my surprise, this isn’t such a popular theme. I spent a good week of internet and pinterest searching and it was quite the challenge to find some variety.

If anyone happens to be interested in planning a Princess Bride party yourself, here’s my pinterest board with all that I found helpful or inspiring when it came to theming a party after the movie. Or maybe you’re looking for a last minute romantic evening at home plan for Valentine’s day. This could work too! 😉

“Just another trip to the castle…” she said casually. Only any trip to any castle isn’t “just” another trip. It’s a new magical adventure just waiting to be discovered!

My latest visit to one of my favorite places this past Saturday was exactly that. My husband was out of town with my sister, attending a convention. All my friends seemed to already have plans or really aren’t wine people. My mother just so happened to be free, which was perfect, because she’s really fun company.

When I called to schedule a tour with Angie, I’d told her how I’d wanted to take advantage of my wine club membership perks and was looking for something a little different from the standard tour. At first, she recommended the Cheese and Wine tasting, which sounded delish. When she pulled up my membership information, she informed me that there was a different tour that she highly recommended and with my membership, it would give me 50% off of it. I decided to go for it.

Who knew that the Royal Food and Wine pairing tour at Castello di Amorosa would be so outstanding? I’m a seasoned visitor to the castle of love in Napa Valley’s Calistoga region. Erick and I have done both the self-guided tour and the guided tour multiple times with really fun results. No two tours have ever been the same and the sommeliers have always made each experience unique regardless of how many times we’ve done the tour. We’ve attended wine club events and had a complete blast of an evening, but the tour we did Saturday was an even more special visit.

I know, I know. Jumping a little late on..the…uh…”It’s the new year, let’s talk about my resolutions” thing, but who cares?! Despite being “late” (all depends who you’re talking to. This is a hobby, right? No deadlines? XD), I feel like 2015 is already out to an amazing start! Don’t you?

I don’t really do resolutions. They always seem so…not resolute to me. Ironic, I know, but it’s how I feel. I think people get so wrapped up in making a list of resolutions that they’re into really making them especially heart-felt. Don’t get me wrong, it’s totally awesome to create a list and then do your best throughout the year to check it off, but for me, it’s never worked well and I was just making resolutions to make resolutions with no heart put into it.

Instead, I prefer goals or setting plans in stone. Like last year, my goal was to visit Disneyland once a month. It didn’t happen, but I did go eight months out of twelve which is a lot more than some people can say and I feel like I completely took advantage of our passes with those visits. Some were one-day excursions. Some were full weekends and it was a blast.

One big project I’m undertaking for the year is an adventure a day, as I’ve change the motto of the blog to as well. On Instagram, I’m logging my daily adventures. So far, I’m off to a great start, but I haven’t quite decided yet if I’m going to post a recap each week, month or something else. For a weekly recap, I’m a little behind, but I’m thinking maybe something a little more bi-weekly. We shall see…

Anyways, my theme of the year is most certainly “Adventure is Out There!”(yes, from Up) and I’ve been on constant alert for it. I’ve been lucky that Adventure hasn’t been too hard to come across so far, but we are only twelve days into the year. Who really knows for sure? Either way, it’s off to an amazing start and I’m really looking forward to all the adventures just waiting to happen this year and sharing them with you all!

In celebration of Three Kings Day (Día de los Reyes), we had a small gathering at our home. Erick has always talked about doing something for it with the traditional rosca cake and after we watched the Book of Life, I insisted that we touch back on his heritage and start bringing some of the Mexican traditions and celebrations into our home. Since this holiday marks the end of the Christmas season, I thought this would be the perfect place to start.

We kept it very simple and I didn’t really create any new decorations since one part of the holiday is to “show off” all of your Christmas decor before you take it down the next day. Next year, I think I might want to get some glass star lanterns or something to add a little latin flare, but for the smallness of the event, it was just right and my normal holiday decor sufficed. Read More

(Loving the layout’s use of integrating the featured image function. It’s way too much fun!)

I’ve talked a lot about the Clue Carousal and what it entailed and what was work got put into it, but I don’t think I ever actually shared the rules of our game. So I’m sharing for prosperity’s sake. Don’t make any plans after if you’re wanting to play this game for real. It is quite intense. I still haven’t made it through the whole movie and I’ve played it three times.

The Clue Carousal was a major success for our first party in our new apartment! We ended up having a total of 18 guests. Since Erick and I started our own parties, I’ve never had such a great turn out. It was an awesome feeling. Not only that, at the end, lots of people were asking for more in the future, which made me feel really good.

When I got up this morning, people were already talking about last night on Facebook. Someone even shared a quote from yours truly trying our party’s very bad selection of tequila for the shots portion of the game, “Who hasn’t had a shot of that tequila? Okay, you have to take a shot. It’s TERRIBLE.”